//------------------------------//
// Escapee 
// Story: Strange Bedfellows 
// by BRBrony9 
//------------------------------//

'Come along, Admiral. I am waiting.'

The female voice again, from the bridge outside the ready room door. Marcos had kept his pistol aimed, in case the drones should try to break in and kill him, but it seemed that they wanted him alive. Or, to be more accurate, she wanted him alive. He could only assume that the voice was that of the Changeling Queen, though he had never encountered her before. Somehow, she had found her way aboard his vessel, to his bridge, no less.

He had no intention of giving himself up, but he could not see any other option. He had his pistol, but they had the numbers. He might be able to take down two, perhaps three of the drones before they got him, and if the Queen decided to attack herself, then he would probably be dead before he could even pull the trigger. He would certainly not be able to make it to the turbolift, or the emergency ladders, the only ways off of the bridge. The only other option open to him was to turn the laspistol on himself, but Marcos was too proud to take such a route. He certainly understood the mindset of those men and women who, faced with imminent and painful death at the hands of a Dark Eldar torturer, the rape and destruction of their mind and soul by Chaos, or being fed into a Tyranid reclamation pool and turned into a biological soup to feed their next invasion, would do the job themselves to spare them from pain and terror. There were many fates out in the universe that were worse than a mere painless, instant death. But Marcos had always known that, whatever end the Emperor might have planned for him, he would face it like a man, and like an officer.

With no chance of escape and no appetite for suicide, Marcos reasoned that there was only one course of action that he could take; surrender. But that would be anathema to him, to any officer of the Imperial Navy. Ships had surrendered, of course, in the past, but the ignominy of such a fate would leave any captain hanging his head in shame. Many captains, captured by the enemy and later freed, had been sentenced to hang, or at least to hard labour, if it was determined by a tribunal that they had given up their ship too easily. The crew had fought hard, he was sure, but they were confronting an enemy that was essentially unknown to them. Even with Celestia's help and the information she had provided, Marcos and his senior officers were operating almost in the dark when they tried to develop a plan to fight the Changelings.

The internal sensors of the Emperor's judgement had let them down, even though they had worked perfectly. They had detected the emissions of the unknown particle, which was what they had been calibrated for. But to the frustration of the technicians as well as the senior staff, they could only detect a Changeling using that method when the drone in question was in its true form, and not when it was in disguise. That fundamental flaw had reduced the most advanced ship in the Crusade fleet to the same level as the primitive ponies when it came to detecting Changelings. Perhaps even behind them; it was possible that the ponies might have psychic abilities that could detect a drone or force it to take its true shape. They seemed to have magic for just about everything else.

Marcos could not bring himself to surrender. His ship may be lost, or it may not. He did not know whether even now a rescue party might be fighting its way to the bridge to recapture it. Had command been transferred to the security centre, as per procedure? Did the rest of the ship even know the bridge had been taken? Where was General Jahn? Who, if anyone, was now in command of the ship? But if he did not surrender, what other choices did he have? He could not escape the bridge or fight his way free.

His decision was made for him a few moments later. A green flash lit the ready room. Marcos turned with his gun raised, but felt it being torn from his grasp by some invisible force. At the same time, he found himself being lifted bodily from his feet, and slammed against the wall, as he stared at his aggressor.

No ordinary drone, but clearly a Changeling. It was the larger creature he had  briefly glimpsed coming out of the turbolift. Evidently tired of waiting for him to surrender, it had decided to force the issue. Its much larger stature, rather incongruous golden diadem topped with a reddish-purple star, and large crooked horn marked it out as being very much different from the rank and file drones which had accompanied it. This must be the Queen, Marcos surmised, and was proven correct when the creature spoke, in the same smooth, feminine voice which had been calling him from outside of the door.

'Not feeling particularly cooperative, Admiral? That's alright. You can continue living your little fantasy, but your ship is mine now.'




The Indefatigable kept station alongside the Emperor's Judgement, some two thousand miles distant. The fleet had pulled into a tight defensive formation after the engagement with the Chaos pursuers, in case of another attack while they were performing emergency repairs. Nothing had been forthcoming, at least not from the Archenemy. The flagship, however, had reported boarders; not Chaos, but Changeling. As the only other capital ship left in the fleet, the Indefatigable was the logical choice for Lord-Admiral Marcos to transfer his flag to if it became necessary, and should it be necessary, command of the fleet would ultimately fall to the Indefatigable's captain, Marsten, if anything should happen to the Admiral. A sober man with a sharp mind and good tactical nous, Lukas Marsten had been in command of the mighty warship for eight years as he neared the twilight of a long and proud career in the Imperial Navy. His ship was equally proud and storied, having fought in many of the great battles of the Segmentum Pacificus. It had taken heavy damage during the fighting for Kuda Prime, however, and again in the most recent battle, pounded by hostile lances and missiles. Nothing critical had been damaged, though, and the ship was still operational despite taking numerous casualties. There would be many space burials in the days to come.

The news from the flagship was concerning, and Marsten had brought his ship in closer as ordered, to keep the transports safe as they moved in to deliver guardsmen to help defend the Emperor's Judgement. It was possible, though unlikely and unproven, that the Changelings might be working in conjunction with Chaos, and Marsten had ordered his ship to keep a constant watch on the space around them, with junior officers glued to their Auspex readouts in case there was any sign of movement from the rest of the Chaos fleet in orbit around the planet. They had not moved, even as their comrades were destroyed by the sun, which had surprised Marsten almost as much as it must have surprised the crewmen of the Chaos ships. The cause had only been vaguely explained to the captains of the fleet by the Lord-Admiral after the event, and it had made Marsten feel both relieved and unnerved. It had come from the same source, apparently, as the previous single beam which had struck out across the heavens and alarmed the Auspex crews of the fleet before destroying a large asteroid. The pony princess, Marcos had said, was the source, and also of the solar flare which had opened a hole in the warp storm and allowed the fleet to pass through and attack the enemy.

The Indefatigable kept station as the transports moved in and began to launch landing barges and transport shuttles, to carry troops across to the flagship. Marsten kept one eye on the vid-screen as it showed the craft in transit, but as they closed in upon the side of the Emperor's Judgement, they began to turn away, their thrusters flaring in the darkness, returning to their transports. Marsten frowned. Was something wrong? A malfunction? But all of the barges and shuttles were heading back. None of them were continuing on to the flagship.

'Captain, vox signal from the Emperor's Judgement,' the vox officer called to Marsten, who rose from his chair. 

'Put it through, Ensign,' he ordered with a nod, and the officer complied, sending the signal through to him.

'Captain Marsten, this is Lord-Admiral Marcos.' The familiar voice came through loud and clear, and Marsten was relieved to hear the voice of his commander. There had been doubts, given the attack on the flagship, as to whether Marcos could have retained command of the ship. Was this call going to be a signal to Marcos to prepare to receive the Admiral and his command staff aboard the Indefatigable, to transfer his flag over to the other vessel?

'Go ahead, My Lord,' Marsten replied. 'What is the situation on board?'

'The situation is good, Captain,' Marcos answered. 'I have returned the Imperial Guard reinforcements. We have successfully contained the threat to three decks, and are now in the process of eradicating the remaining Changelings. I expect the entire ship to be back under our control in the next two or three hours.'

'That is a great relief to hear, My Lord,' Marsten responded. 'There were fears for the safety of your ship, and for you yourself. Will you be remaining aboard, or will you be transferring your flag?'

'No, I shall be remaining here,' Marcos assured him. 'The danger is minimal, and the enemy contained. We have taken casualties, regretfully, but the incident will soon be behind us and we can turn our attentions back to our true enemy.'

'Yes, My Lord. We have kept a close watch on the remaining Chaos vessels. They have not broken orbit,' Marsten informed Marcos, who he was sure would have been too busy coordinating the defence of his ship to pay attention to the inaction of the Archenemy. 'They appear content to remain in place. Perhaps they are pursuing some goals on the planet surface.'

'Oh, there is no doubt that they are doing that, Captain,' Marcos replied. 'What exactly they are looking for, I do not know, but at this point, there is little that we can do to stop them.'

'We can move on them, My Lord,' Marsten suggested. 'Hit them now. They will be expecting us to be licking our wounds, or perhaps to flee entirely. If we move in...perhaps using the sun to clear our path?' he offered, referring to the pony princess and her remarkable abilities. If she had been able to strike the Chaos pursuers, then she could probably do the same with the ships in orbit around the planet, although Marsten appreciated that was a rather different prospect, given the potential for collateral damage if one of her attacks should miss its target and strike the planet instead.

'No, no,' Marcos replied. 'We will leave them to their devices.'

'But My Lord, we cannot simply abandon the planet, can we?' Marsten exclaimed. 'What about our men? There are still many units on the planet's surface, and...'

'I am aware, Captain,' Marcos answered. 'I am very aware of that fact. I am not suggesting that we will abandon our men; merely that we will not strike now. The ships of the fleet are damaged and in need of repair, and we must wait until we have cleared these Changelings from the lower decks here. We will continue to monitor the enemy, and react accordingly if they attempt any kind of maneouvere against us. But for now, we must standby and tend to ourselves before we can possibly move in to help those we have left behind.'

'Yes, My Lord,' Marsten responded, though not without misgivings. He felt sure that they could punch through the remaining ships of the Chaos fleet, once the Changelings had been cleared out of the flagship. Repairs had been underway since the fighting had ceased, and while they had been interrupted aboard the flagship they had never stopped across the rest of the ships of the Crusade. Maintenance crews and Techpriests had been working non-stop to fix damaged bulkheads and seals and return weapons to working order. The fleet was, if not exactly ready for battle, then certainly on the way to being prepared for it once more, and Marsten trusted his crew. As deputy fleet commander by default of seniority among the other ship captains, he trusted the crews of the whole Crusade, as well, but he also trusted the judgement of Lord-Admiral Marcos. The man had led them this far and accomplished much, taking worlds and systems for the Emperor and driving to the edge of known space, to the very fringe of the universe, after all.

'Very good. Carry on, captain,' Marcos ordered. 'Continue with repairs to your vessel. I will inform you of our next move once we have eliminated the threat on board this ship.'

'Yes, My Lord. We shall try and get the ship back in full working order,' Marsten replied. Marcos ended the vox call, and Marsten was left to ponder what he had said. He was sure that Marcos would not be truly considering abandoning the planet, or the men left behind on its surface. He had shown no inclination to retreat when the warp storm was raging around the planet and keeping them at bay; back then he had been determined to somehow find a way through the barrier and rescue the trapped Imperial forces, as well as continue their operation to capture the planet. Ever since that time, however, he had seemed different, as though his ultimate goal had changed, shifted in some fashion. Now, he seemed to be less concerned with the capture of the planet, which had been their initial aim, and more with the protection of it against the forces of Chaos. An admirable goal, to be sure, for a world tainted by the Ruinous Powers would be of no use to the Imperium anyway. But that no longer seemed to be his only motivation. Marsten had seen, during officers' conferences, that Marcos now seemed to have a desire to protect the planet not to preserve its garden world status for the Imperium, but to protect the inhabitants who lived there currently. To protect the ponies.

That is how it seemed to Marsten, at least. Perhaps the reality was different, but there was certainly no doubt that the Lord-Admiral had seemed to take advice and even guidance from the pony princess, letting her dictate, to some extent, the actions of the fleet and of the Imperial Guard also. While it was true that she undoubtedly knew her planet and its features better than Marcos or anyone else in the fleet, to give any kind of influence to a Xenos was...questionable at best, and outright treasonous at worst. Marsten knew that such things had been done in the past, of course. As a senior lieutenant some years ago, he had fought alongside the Eldar in a successful effort to keep Chaos ships from landing on a distant planet where they were attempting to retrieve some ancient artifact; he could no longer quite remember the name of it. Once the Chaos fleet had been driven off, Marsten had fully expected the Eldar to launch a surprise attack on the Navy vessels, but they had merely slipped away, their task completed. Just because they had not struck their erstwhile allies on that occasion, however, most certainly did not mean that they would not do so elsewhere, as indeed they had many times in the past, and there was absolutely no guarantee whatsoever that princess Celestia would not try the same thing. She had demonstrated the ability to destroy a fleet; if she truly desired the protection of her planet, why would she not destroy the Crusade, as well?

She had worked with them, yes, and the Guard and the Navy had provided her with considerable support in her efforts to rid her world of not just the forces of Chaos, but also the Changelings, who were apparently an old foe of the ponies. Doing the dirty work for her? Marsten would admit that it seemed possible that the Chaos forces had only arrived at this planet as a result of their own arrival, perhaps a force which had been in pursuit of the Crusade with the intention of either destroying it or perhaps precluding any further success on their part; the natural instinct of the traitor forces was to attack the loyalists, after all, in any way they could which might possibly hurt the Imperium. 

Marsten did not know what the true intentions of either the ponies or the Changelings were when it came to their dealings with mankind. All he had to go on was the facts as they were presented to him; the ponies were willing to work with them, had asked for help and had responded in kind, fighting alongside the Imperial Guard. The pony princess had used her considerable powers to defend the fleet against the Archenemy, destroying their pursuit force and sparing the Crusade from total destruction at their hands. The Changelings, on the other hand, had shown nothing but aggression, killing several key figures among the Crusade's hierarchy and now apparently boarding the flagship of the entire fleet. From his limited knowledge, Marsten was not sure which represented the greater threat to the fleet; the insidious Changelings and their ability to camouflage themselves and to infiltrate among the crews with no evidence of their presence, or the pony princess who clearly possessed the ability to simply destroy their ships out of hand if she chose. Whether she was likely to do so was a mystery to him, for only Lord-Admiral Marcos had actually spoken to her.

Perhaps that was part of the problem, and the reason behind the change in his approach, and consequently the approach of the entire Crusade. Maybe if someone else had talked to the princess, they would have a different view of both her and of the planet as a whole. Lord-General Galen had spoken to her also, but of course he was dead; another contributory factor, perhaps, to the change in the Lord-Admiral. Galen had been a close friend of Marcos, and a certain influence on his approach, giving great strategic and tactical insight into Imperial Guard operations. General Jahn, while still an experienced officer, was perhaps not held in quite the same high regard by the Lord-Admiral.

Marsten watched on the vid-screen as the landing barges returned to their transport ships, having been turned away by the Lord-Admiral; no longer required, he had said. The situation was now under control, quite a remarkable turnaround in such a short space of time, given that the call for Imperial Guard reinforcements had only gone out shortly before. Captain Marsten had not encountered the Changelings himself, relying entirely on images of the corpses of dead drones shown during officers' briefings for his knowledge of their appearance and abilities. He had confidence in the armsmen of the fleet and their ability to fight off any threat that might board one of their vessels, but it was still an impressive thing to have turned a situation around so quickly.

He certainly hoped that such an enemy should never come aboard the Indefatigable, but it was possible that they were already aboard. That was the danger these Changelings posed; that nobody truly knew where they were at any given time. Nobody knew if any of the individuals around them were truly human or not. It was a threat which was as much psychological as physical. It had already been causing distrust and fear among the crews of the fleet, at least those members who knew the truth of the threat. The majority of crewmen had not been informed of the nature of that aspect of Changeling physiology for that exact reason; so as to not spread fear and confusion unnecessarily. It would not take much for the possibility of Changeling infiltration to be turned into an excuse for violence, or even for uprisings and mutinies; we thought our officer was a Changeling!

As the barges returned to their transports, one small shuttle launched from one of the upper decks of the Emperor's Judgement, dropping away into the void as its engines flared, driving it forward and away from the battleship, heading in the direction of the Indefatigable. It was a tiny dot against the blackness of space, but it showed up clearly on the Auspex arrays. It was not a noteworthy event; after all, there were plenty of other shuttles around, returning to their transport ships with their cargoes of Imperial Guardsmen. This one seemed no different, other than that, if the Auspex officers were paying particularly close attention to the shuttles instead of watching the surrounding sectors for threats and monitoring the Chaos ships, they would have noticed its track came from the flagship and not the transports like the others.

'Captain, we are being hailed,' the vox officer informed Marsten.

'The Lord-Admiral again?' he asked, getting a negative response.

'No, Captain. One of the shuttles.' Marsten cocked his head slightly. Why would one of the transport shuttles be hailing them? They had not launched any of their own who might be requesting docking clearance. And yet...

'They are requesting clearance to dock with us, Captain,' the vox officer added.

'Why? Who is on board?' Marsten asked curiously. The Lord-Admiral had staunchly stated that he would not be moving his flag over to the Indefatigable, and he had made no mention of personnel or equipment transfers to or from Marsten's ship. The vox officer made inquiries with the shuttle's pilot, and gave a reply.

'It is General Jahn, sir.' Now Marsten was very curious indeed. 

'Put him through to me, Lieutenant,' he ordered, and the vox officer transferred the connection. 'This is Captain Marsten of the Indefatigable,' he spoke. 'Identify yourself.'

'This is General Jahn,' came the response, his voice certainly identifiable over the vox link. It sounded shaken. 'Captain, the bridge of the Emperor's Judgement has fallen to the Changelings. I believe the Lord-Admiral to be dead or captured.'

That was most certainly not what Marsten had expected to hear. 'General, I have just spoken with the Lord-Admiral myself,' he replied. 'He informed me that the Changeling threat has been contained.'

'Then that was not the Lord-Admiral you were speaking to!' Jahn exclaimed, the urgency in his voice audible even over the crackling vox link. 'Please, Captain. The ship may not have fallen in its entirety yet, but the bridge is gone, and the Lord-Admiral with it, one way or another.'

Questions began swirling through Marsten's mind. Was this a Changeling trick? Was Jahn a Changeling in disguise, or was, as the General seemed to be suggesting, the doppelganger actually the Lord-Admiral whom he had just finished speaking to? Were they both Changelings? Were they both the real deal, but there had simply been a communications breakdown somewhere along the line? He muted his microphone and turned to the Auspex crew.

'Track that shuttle,' he ordered. 'Where did it come from? Be precise.' After a brief check using the transmission to identify which shuttle was sending it, a reply came from the Auspex officer.

'It came from the Emperor's Judgement, sir. Deck 5.'

Captain Marsten thought for a moment. The Lord-Admiral had said that the Changelings were contained, having been halted whilst in possession of decks 10 and 11. By contrast, General Jahn said they had reached the bridge, though not necessarily by capturing every deck in between. 

'Bring us aboard at gunpoint if you must, Captain, but bring us aboard, or the whole fleet will be in danger!' General Jahn urged over the vox link. Marsten took another look at the viewscreen that showed the battlespace outside his vessel. The Emperor's Judgement, a vast bulk even from such a distance, magnified by the zoom optics to also show the transports, shuttles and barges that were on the move. If the Changelings wanted to conduct a deception operation and sneak a team aboard his ship, then they would surely not have made their mouthpiece, a drone disguised as Lord-Admiral Marcos, inform him that the attack had been well contained and then have another drone disguised as General Jahn contradict that fact openly. Conversely, if the Lord-Admiral had been speaking truthfully, then this could not be a Changeling trick, as the creatures were contained to decks 10 and 11- and the shuttle had launched from deck 5. But if he had been correct, there would not have been time for the drones to capture the bridge and Jahn to reach and launch a shuttle since the end of Marsten's vox call with the Crusade's commander. But if the General was telling the truth, and the Lord-Admiral was a Changeling, then...

The possibilities were myriad and infuriatingly confusing, swirling inside Marsten's brain. He had tried to trust logic, but logic had contradicted itself, so all he could do was to trust his gut. He unmuted his microphone and spoke.

'General Jahn? You have permission to come aboard.'